St Mary the Virgin is the Church of England parish church of Lytchett Matravers in Dorset. Its parish is part of the Diocese of Salisbury. The building is Grade I listed. History Foundation There is no known record of the date of the foundation of the church at Lytchett Matravers. The Domesday Book records that by 1086 Sir John Maltravers held the manor of Lytchett Matravers. The John Matravers who was buried in the church was Edward II's gaoler and possibly his murderer. In the churchyard, just outside the north door, is a yew tree that in the 1980s was dated to be at least 1,700 years old. Its location here next to the church suggests the spot has been a holy place since before the current church was built. A Sir Walter Maltravers went on a Crusade to the Holy Land and it is possible that he ordered the church to be built beside the manor house in his absence about the year 1200. The west tower, the nave and the chancel were built then, followed by the north aisle in the 14th century. Sir John Maltravers’ heir, his granddaughter Eleanor, carried the manor and title to her husband John FitzAlan, 1st Baron Arundel. Their descendants have been Earls of Arundel since 1415 and later Dukes of Norfolk, but are still Barons Maltravers. The tower is the oldest part of the building. The arch dates from 1200 but the pinnacles, which are carved within the Maltravers fret, are from about 1500. The arcade on the north side of the nave was built about 1350, when the north aisle was added. There is also an unusually large hagioscope or squint giving a view from the north aisle to the chancel and altar. Plague Local tradition has it that the village moved away from the site of the church during the Black Death. The church slowly fell into disuse and was used solely by the Rector for morning prayer and vespers, with regular worship moving to a chapel in the village. The church has a late-15th-century monumental brass in memory of Thomas Pethyn or Talpathyn, who was rector 1430–70. It is a cadaver monument, showing his corpse in its burial shroud, which is a style unusual for monumental brasses in England. Elsewhere there is an example from the early 16th century, also in memory of a parish priest, in the parish